Crimelog

Sue walked into the store, bag in hand, poised
and ready for shopping. Walking the aisles, she shot quick glances
from left to right, hovering over the meat counter, as would
a scavenger, frenzied for another taste of flesh. She heard
the clock strike seven, another hour of another day much like
yesterday, and all too like the future, it seems. Grasping her
purchase, she walks to the checkout counter, drops the food
down on the horizontal escalator, and slyly peers again from
left to right, quick looks. The cashier slides the packaged
meat over the little laser thing embedded in the counter. Sue
pays with a twenty, gathers her change and walks out, turning
around once to see if anyone is following her moves. She has
become a bit paranoid as of late. Out she strolls adroitly to
her Toyota, gets in, fastens seatbelt, turns key, and screeches
out of that lot, a wide grin budding on her face.

Beethoven's ninth symphony plays on her radio, as she turns
into the apartment complex, humming to the melodies. She completes
her ritual of driving and strolls to her front door. A box from
UPS sits by the entrance. She picks it up, enters her apartment,
jumps onto the couch, and ogles the package, more correspondence
from her friend, Galzey.

There is not much fun in it anymore, although what keeps her
humming along is the money. Making a brain surgeon's salary
with only a high school education is a thrill. It is also a
headache at times, hiding her income from prying eyes, lying
on parts of her tax returns, making false statements to attorneys,
under oath and on tape. Yes, sin riddles her past. Nevertheless,
determined to persevere and earn her keep, Sue struggles on,
head high.

Born into a full-fledged crime family, Sue Poseidon grew up
in New York City in the '60s. Drugs and gambling, stolen cars
and pick pocketing is all she knows. This is her trade, her
lifeblood. Reluctant from the beginning, she learned to numb
herself of feelings of guilt and remorse, proven by cold-blooded
murder of at least two people by her own hands. Now the year
2000 has come so quickly. Poseidon is currently working with
a longtime friend on the most intricate scheme she has ever
laid eyes on. It is the brainchild of one Marcus Galzey, former
computer hacker turned mob boss. Galzey thrives on simplicity
and yet is elegant in his procedures all the same. He has a
certain yin-yang personality, melding like the salt and pepper
of his hair. Hackers round the world adore this legend of computers.
Sue now works for this man, entangled within a web of lies,
deceit, and most importantly, intense stealth.

Galzey and Poseidon first met in the Bronx, in '79, both in
their early twenties. The two hit it off immediately and soon
became crime partners, doing odd jobs up and down the east coast.
The money they raked in was enough to pay the bills, with a
little extra for extravagances: flashy cars and expensive cigars.
The game was fun. Now, the partners in crime are working with
a knowledge base built on thirty years of creative crime and
evasion.

Counterfeiting is now their game. Some claim that almost 5 percent
of U.S. currency in circulation is counterfeit. If this statistic
is true, Poseidon and Galzey are the top producers, having about
3 percent of this share of counterfeit money. They have been
making fake money for 5 years. Their procedures are so high
tech that one would be hard pressed to find ANYTHING unusual
about this "pseudo-cash". Galzey has been able to perfect the
duplication of every bill in the United States' arsenal: tens,
twenties, and hundreds, even thousand dollar bills. With the
advent of sophisticated color copiers, costing within the twenty
thousand dollar range, they can duplicate bills seamlessly with
no flaws visible to the naked eye.

It is tedious work for these counterfeiters, truth be told.
Galzey prints all of the counterfeit money, and employs Poseidon
in getting the sheets of bills "prepped". The easiest method
for counterfeiting currency is to locate a stash of pre-1990
bills. These bills do not have the security thread, as do later
bills. This aids in the "real" look. Galzey will copy about
two thousand dollars in bills at one time. Poseidon then must
age the bills; make them look older to add to the realistic
effect. Poseidon does all of the dirty work, locating the pre-1990
bills by getting change from numerous areas. She must spend
literally hours hovered over a table with an X-Acto knife and
a magnifying glass, cutting the sheet of bills precisely. When
copying and cutting is finished, she brings them to her clothes
dryer in the basement of her SoHo apartment. She takes a large
cloth bag, inserts the new counterfeit bills, adds about a cup
of coffee beans, and drops this whole recipe into the clothes
dryer. The effect of the dryer and the coffee beans fades the
bill to a dingy brownish, yellowish color, making the bills
look aged. The creation phase is complete.

Poseidon then hitches cab rides around the NYC area, careful
not to get the same cab driver twice in one night. She'll pay
for her short rides with a twenty, and pocket the change. On
a two-hour foray, she has made up to two thousand five hundred
dollars riding what she calls the "counterfeit cab carousel".

As one can see, this life of crime can become extremely boring.
Sue must continually find new places to get change for her counterfeit
currency, so as not to alert authorities. She has literally
been in over one thousand businesses, including gas station
marts, and department stores from NYC to Maine since the beginning
of the operation in '95. Sue is getting tired of this life,
tired of the running, the living in fear of being caught. She
has been a criminal her whole life, inventing new tricks like
the coffee bean dryer recipe for numerous other acts of crime.
She contemplates ending the whole thing, not her life, but the
life she has made for herself. Lying on her couch gazing at
the fireplace and the one thousand dollar candelabras over the
mantle, she considers compromising the whole counterfeiting
operation, giving up her cover; of course, Galzey would then
go down with her, in a blaze of green, so to speak.

She ponders over telling her story, alleviating the stress within
her system that has taken its toll over five years of hustling
fake bills. Before she can think another thought, a battering
ram blows the hinges off her door, she drops the UPS package.
She tries to hide herself and all incriminating evidence. It
is too late. They already know everything.